CNN anchor Christine Romans cited a debunked school shooting statistic on Tuesday after reports that there was a school shooting in St. Mary’s County, Maryland.
WATCH:
Romans claimed that there have been 16 school shootings in 2018 alone.
“Sadly so many millions of American schoolchildren know the protocol, they drill for this,” Romans said. “Their school resource officers on hand in all kinds of different campuses, we know there have been 16 shootings in school this year before today.”
The Daily Caller News Foundation fact checked the similar and oft-repeated claim that there have been 18 school shootings in 2018, and found that the numbers were obviously false. (RELATED: FACT CHECK: Have There Been 18 School Shootings In 2018?)
WATCH:
The statistics cited for those claims count suicides and accidental gun discharges on school grounds as “school shootings,” despite the fact that such incidents do not match the common understanding of a school shooting. The recent incident in Parkland, Florida was the first mass school shooting in 2018.
Romans appeared to be citing a new list from CNN that claims there were 16 school shootings. Unlike the 18 shootings claim, the list excludes suicides, but it still includes accidental gun discharges as long as someone was injured.
“A teacher accidentally discharged a gun during a public safety class at Seaside High School, injuring a student,” read one incident from March 13.
CNN also included incidents that occurred in parking lots and didn’t involve students, such as a a January 31 incident where “A fight led to a shooting in the parking lot of Lincoln High School, fatally wounding a 32-year-old man.”
As DCNF’s Kush Desai writes, “This is a broad standard…and law enforcement officials apply a considerably more rigorous standard to distinguish an active shooter situation from less serious gun incidents.”
